


Abscond

by ShariDeschain



Series: Batdictionary [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason and Damian have foul mouths, Swearing, i feel like Jason’s gargoyle needs to be a character at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 11:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10570317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: Abscond(n) to sneak away and hideOr the one where Henry the gargoyle befriends another dead Robin.





	

Jason likes to think he moved on, that he’s, if not a better person, at least a different one. Less angry, less crazy, more in control of his emotions. It takes nights like this one to truly realize that he actually _is_ better, because it’s on nights like this one that he remembers how it used to feel like. The fire in the stomach and the taste of blood on the lips, trembling hands and gritted teeth, every muscle of his body tensed in anger and itching for a violent release, the need to hurt surpassed only by the need of being hurt.

He hates it.

He hates that one fight with Bruce can still reduce him like this, break him and cut him as if he were still a child caught doing something wrong while knowing that it could cost him everything.

“But the little I have now he couldn’t take it away even if he wanted”, he says to the gargoyle next to him. “So joke’s on him, you know?”

If the gargoyle knows, he doesn’t tell, not to him and not to anyone else. Secrets between friends are important to him, Jason’s learned. It’s one of the reasons he likes this place so much. There are years worth of whispered secrets impressed into the ancient stones, scorch marks of old cigarettes and deep scratches from a lot of different knives, dark shadows that were once either bloodstains or spilled coke. And everything is covered in pigeon shit. It’s sad and hilarious at the same time.

He leans back against the statue, hands crossed behind his head, feet resting against the railing, comfortable enough to close his eyes, uncomfortable enough to not fall asleep and towards a very ridiculous death.

And Gotham’s nights are never silent, or even quiet, but the noise of the streets it’s familiar, if not even welcomed to his ears, like a childhood lullaby. It happens every time he comes back, yet he’s still surprised at how it feels weird to call this city his home and at how it’s even weirder _not_ to call it so. It’s one of those things he’ll probably never understand.

Like he doesn’t understand what tips him off a hour or so later, when he opens his eyes to find himself almost face to face with his littlest brother dangling upside down from one of the gargoyle’s horns, cape fluttering around his head in the night’s breeze and a little smirk on his face.

Jason blinks one, two, three times, and a few heartbeats go by before he reacts.

“You know you’re not a real bat, right? Despite the fact you do look like one”, he says, because if he starts yelling at him then Damian will know that he actually succeeded in startling him, and Jason’s not going to give him that satisfaction on his life.

Beside, he’s kinda impressed by how the kid managed to sneak on him like that.

Damian tries to look down on him but being on the wrong side of the up and down thing, he only manage to glower at him, and it’s not even as threatening as it usually is.

“Father is angry with you”, the kid says, still scowling.

“Get down from there”, Jason retorts. “And tell me what else is new under the sun.”

“It’s night”, Damian points out, because he likes to be irritating like that. “And because of you he’s now crossed with me too.”

“Well, shit”, Jason answers. “Now get down from there.”

Damian glances at him for a bit more, just to spite him, then he does this weird and almost painful to look backflip thing that has Nightwing's trademark all over it. Jason watches the kid as he spins in the air for a moment, and then his feet land far too close to the edge, in what he knows it’s a perfect balance, and still it’s so unnerving to see him playing, if not with death, at least with some serious injury in such a careless way, so as soon as Robin comes in his reach he grabs him by his utility belt and pulls him down to sit next to him.

Structurally speaking, gargoyle statues are not designed for people to sit on them, but with a little of motivation Jason makes it work anyway. Damian being tiny helps a lot, still the kid is not that happy to end up squished against Jason’s side.

“Todd, I hope you are aware that your fatness is highly inconvenient both for your choice of lifestyle and for my person”, he complains, pushing not so lightly at him, and Jason elbows him in the ribs.

“First, keep your jealousy for my muscle mass in check, kid”, he retorts. “Second, this is my spot and you’re already occupying it illegally, so don’t be rude or I’ll push you down the fucking tower.”

“We both know you wouldn’t”, Damian chirps, definitely unimpressed by the threat. “And this is not your spot, it’s a public building.”

“The hell it is”, Jason answers. “This is Henry.”

Damian looks up at him in confusion.

“Henry?”

Jason points at Henry, Damian cranes his neck back to look at the gargoyle and then turns again towards him. He blinks, opens his mouth to say something - something nasty, knowing him - but then he seems to rethink it and he closes it again.

“You are a weird individual, Todd”, he states matter-of-factly after a moment, but he leaves it at that.

“Pot, meet kettle”, Jason snorts, then he looks him over from the corner of his eye. “You wanna tell me what are you doing here?”

“I told you, Father is angry at me because of you”, the kid answers, but if that was true by now he’d have come at Jason with a knife and a thirst for revenge and he wouldn’t be sitting quietly next to him.

“I suppose you mean that he came home angry because of our fight and then yelled at you for no reason?”, he translates.

“He kind of had a reason”, Damian admits reluctantly. “Tonight I was supposed to be working on my moral qualities instead of my physical ones.”

“You were grounded”, Jason corrects with half a smile.

A grunt.

“If you prefer.”

“I still don’t see how it is my fault, brat.”

Damian glowers again and doesn’t answer, so Jason dramatically throws his hands in the air.

“Fine, fine, my apologies for having indisposed your dad so much that he actually forgot to spoil you as he usually does”, he scoffs, earning himself a pointy little elbows in a painful place between his ribs. He shoves at the kid’s head in retaliation, and blocks another punch aimed at his torso before they both give up.

Jason looks over at the kid again and sighs. When he speaks again he’s pretty sure that Henry’s going to laugh at him forever because of this.

“You know you didn’t exactly made things better between the both of you by sneaking off again after he already scolded you for it, right?”, he says anyway because somehow, somewhen and somewhere, without meaning it and definitely without wanting it, he discovered that he didn’t entire loath the idea of being an older brother to Bruce’s kids. And sometimes that meant saying hypocritical shits like this. He wonders how Dick pulls it off so neatly.

Damian gives him the universal _I don’t care one bit about that_ sign, also known as a shrug. Which is kind of fair, since he’s, like, thirteen. Jason doesn’t know what the hell he was expecting, to be honest.

“Look, kid, you know how Bruce is”, he tries again.

Damian nods.

“Yes, I know. Father”, he starts slowly, measuring the words with great care. “Can be a fucking asshole sometimes.”

He lands it there just like this, and again, the only reaction Jason’s capable of having right away is to blink. One, two, three times. He didn’t misheard. _A fucking asshole_ , that’s what the kid said. And it’s not even the words themselves - because god bless Alfred who keeps trying his best to educate all of them, but the kid has a foul mouth almost as bad as Jason’s - no, it’s the words and the combination of voice and accent, with all the right pauses and the syllables stretched out in all the right places. 

He didn’t copy Jason’s voice - something he knows from Tim that he’s well capable of doing - yet it’s still very clear that Damian’s imitating him and that’s not one bit funny. Already in mild panic he picks up the kid and sits him down on his lap without even thinking about the likely violent physical repercussions of his act.

“Please, please, please”, he begs, grabbing him by his arms. “Tell me you never said that in front of Alfred.”

Damian clicks his tongue at him and there’s a spark of malevolent fun in his eyes while he drags the silence between them just to keep him on his toes.

“ _Damian_ ”, Jason growls in a warning tone.

“ _Jason_ ”, he mocks him. 

A little shake, a little digging of big fingers into little shoulders.

“I’m not suicidal, Todd”, Damian finally capitulates with a scoff.

Jason finally exhales.

“Good. Because that would be a murder–suicide, you know? No way Alfred would let me live if he thinks that I’ve taught you to speak like that about your father”, he pauses. “Which I definitely didn’t. Right?”

Damian shakes his head no but his lips curl in a smile that promises future blackmailing and the opening of a brand new category of annoying mockeries.

“You are a little shit”, Jason sighs dramatically, but he can’t deny to be a little amused by the whole thing. He’s even more amused when Damian squirms over his lap, trying to regain his sitting spot between Henry’s stone paws. 

He stops him more to annoy him than anything else, locking his arms around his waist to make him stay in place. Damian punches and wriggles around, pushing at every bit of Jason he can reach, but once established that he’s not letting go without a serious fight Damian does the same thing he uses to do with Dick: he huffs and theatrically leans in his older brother’s embrace, making a show of humoring him out of the graciousness of his heart. Jason laughs and rubs his stubbly cheek against Damian’s forehead, causing a new wave of protests and escape attempts.

“What were you and Father arguing about?”, Damian asks softly a few minutes later, once he quietens again.

He doesn’t look at him and Jason doesn’t know if he really wants an answer to his question or if he’s only asking him out of some sense of balance, since he’s not really grasped yet the concept of getting something without necessarily having to give something else back. Whatever his reasons are, Jason doesn’t really want to go there again.

“It doesn’t matter, kid”, which is kinda the truth. The subject of the argument is not the point, it’s the argument itself the problem. Raised voices and clenched fists, and a burning anger that should be long gone flaring back between them at the first spark. He’s supposed to be better than this.

“He told me about... Henry. Father, I mean”, Damian says, his voice still low and thoughtful. “Not tonight, of course. And he didn’t know you named it Henry, or he would’ve sent you to Arkham a lot sooner”, he teases, earning himself a painful pinch on his thigh. “But he told me that this was your favorite place back when- when you were-”

“Yeah, it was”, Jason deadpans, cutting him off just a little bit too abruptly, then he shoots his little brother a confused look. “Why did you two even had a conversation about this place anyway? Have you been here before?”

He feels more than he sees Damian shrugging against him.

“I used it as an observation post a while back, during a case. It has a good visual on the city”, he explains. “Father looked… uncomfortable with my choice, so I inquired for details.”

“Oh”, Jason answers. And he leaves it at that because honest to god, he doesn’t want to know anything else about Bruce and his weird, sudden attacks of feelings. Also he’s not a total idiot and Damian’s not as sneaky as he thinks he is.

He’s wondering about calling the kid out on his failed attempt to play peacemaker (and for what reason he’d try to do something like that Jason can’t even begin to imagine), but then something in one of Robin’s utility belt’s pockets pings and Damian wrestles again with Jason’s hold to pull out his phone.

Jason’s expecting angry voicemails or peremptory orders to come back home sent via text, instead the kid opens up a game and starts playing with some weirdly yellow viking midgets.

“Someone’s trying to attack my village and steal its resources”, Damian explains while he quickly taps on the screen. “Unworthy fools.”

Jason blinks. Tonight Damian is full of surprises, apparently.

“Uh-uh.”

“It’s good practice for strategy training and studying attack patterns.”

A light scoff.

“Sure.”

Since Damian can’t spare a hand to swat him with, he hits him in the shoulder with the back of his head.

“Shut up, Hood.”

Jason grins and complies for all of two minutes.

“You plan to spend the entire night up here playing video games?”, he asks then, eyes still focussed on the phone screen.

Again, Damian’s only answer is a shrug.

And, well. It’s not like Jason had better things to do tonight, and he doesn’t really mind the company. Henry doesn’t either, probably. Beside, Damian is a warm and weirdly soft weight against him, and he smells like kevlar and children shampoo, just like home used to, long, long time ago. So he sighs and rests his chin on the top of Damian’s head.

“Okay then.”

*

Sitting between the huge gargoyle’s paws, holding his knees close to his chest and wrapped in the black Robin’s cape, Damian looks every bit like a little bird kicked out of the nest way too soon.

Jason wonders if that’s how he looked like too, all those years ago, when Bruce came looking for him. He doesn’t remember feeling that tiny, but he’s pretty sure Damian doesn’t think as himself as tiny either, so it’s probably all adulthood wisdom.

He climbs up the old stones without having to pay too much attention to it, hands and feet automatically finding support points a little consumed by the years, but still as solid and reliable as ever. 

He doesn’t pauses until he reaches Damian, and even then he doesn’t allow any silence wall between them. He scratches his knuckles against the kid’s head as a greeting, then gently pulls down the hood.

“So, baby D, what did your dad do this time?”, he singsongs cheerfully, sitting down next to him. Again, not the simplest of the tasks, but Jason’s getting the handle of it.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that there’s been a fight. You find a moping Robin perched on a roof and you can be sure as hell there’s an angry Batman somewhere else. It’s some kind of unwritten natural law.

Damian doesn’t answer right away, but he reaches back and pulls the hood over his head again. Jason has to poke him a few times to irritate him enough to make him snap.

“He’s a fucking asshole”, the kid snarls, and this time he’s not imitating Jason, he says it in his own voice, and Jason smiles because he can’t help it more than Damian can: it sounds so freaking cute.

“And what else is new under the sun”, he agrees anyway. “And don’t say “it’s night” because I’ll punch you.”

Damian doesn’t take the bait, just burrows his head further into his shoulders.

“C’mon kid, I’ll throw in an ice cream if it’s something that he’s never done before”, Jason tries again.

Still no answer.

“Fine, okay. Whatever it is we’ll just drop Henry over his head when he comes look for you. I’m positive he deserves it anyway.”

“He won’t look for me here”, Damian finally replies, bitter and angry. “He won’t look for me _anywhere_. He’s got better things to do now.”

“That’s not true, kid”, Jason offers weakly. “Beside, you said it yourself that Bruce knows about-”, he starts, and that’s when it clicks. Damian didn’t correct him when he said _your dad_ but they were never talking about Bruce. And, well, shit.

It’s not like he doesn’t understand, because when it comes to love, Jason actually understands blurred lines more than anyone else. Fathers and brothers, children and partners, friends and lovers, it’s actually all very simple, just in a complicated kind of way.

He looks at Damian and thinks about Scarlet and Lian and Bizzarro and he decides that next time he sees him, Nightwing’s going to catch the hard part of Jason’s helmet with his forehead. He’s not gonna say anything, but he’ll take a photo and send it to Damian, and that will probably be enough for both of them, since as vengeance go, bats and little bats are always down for it.

But that’s for later. Right now he just pulls out his phone, unlocks it and taps on a little yellow icon.

And Damian must recognize the cheery jingle of the game right away, because he raises his head enough to peek out from under his hood almost immediately.

“I’m stuck at level four”, Jason explains, holding the phone for Damian to see. It’s not the complete truth because he’s not stuck, he just didn’t have the time to play it for a while, but Damian really doesn’t need to know that. “Wanna help?”

The kid considers the offer for a few seconds, then he makes grabby hands for the phone and Jason promptly pulls it out of his reach.

“Yeah, sure, I’m gonna leave my phone into my kid brother’s unsupervised hands, that’s totally gonna happen”, he scoffs. “Look, kid, I may not be Oracle but I know a few things about data protection and how memes are born.”

That at least earns him a sideways impish grin.

“Come here”, Jason says, smiling back.

This time it’s a offer, pure and simple. One that Damian knows he can refuse without hurting anyone’s feelings. One that he partially accepts anyway by leaning against Jason’s side and not rejecting the arm promptly wrapped around his shoulder.

Jason lets him take his phone then, and watches as he expertly starts to move around the little vikings, practically destroying everything Jason’s builded to remade the village according to his own schemes, loudly and quite rudely insulting his poor strategy skills in the meanwhile. 

He buries his hand into Damian’s short hair and watches him play, throwing a few creative insults himself just to maintain the status quo and not to disappoint the kid, who clearly likes him better as a bad influence. And maybe it’s not much, but at least it’s something. Something little, but nice and honest, something that one day may become a cherished memory. Or not. Right now, Jason doesn’t really care.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Nice anon on tumblr went after my heart and [asked me for Jason and Damian cuddles](https://unavenged-robin.tumblr.com/post/159345260033/i-love-your-batdictionary-series-on-aooo-i-has). And who I am to deny such a thing, honestly.


End file.
